SIX WORD BOOK

I was in my hometown for a week between my first and second years of grad school, meeting an old friend for one of my favorite bicycle rides through Marin County. We were just gearing up to leave the parking lot when my phone beeped. I had a message. I was surprised I even had cell phone service.

My little brother was on the voicemail saying, “Bri, Dad just had a heart attack. Come to Marin General.”

I threw my bike in the back of the car and raced to the hospital. I sat in the waiting room with my brother and sister and mother as my father got heart surgery. For two hours, all we could do was sit and wait. Sit and wait. Sit and wait and hope. And it was in those two hours I picked up a napkin, borrowed a pen from a nurse, looked at my mom and then wrote:

“His heart failed, her heart broke.”

Two months after my dad’s heart surgery, when he was on a strong road to recovery, I called my parents and shared that six word story with them. My mom, silent for a moment, could only reply with, “I really did feel like my heart broke that day.”

This is a book of love and hate, hopes and fears, silliness and seriousness, nothings and everythings.

This is a book of 365 stories that prove it only takes six words to tell a story.